The History of Bingo: From Italian Lotto to America's Church Halls

Where did bingo come from?

Bingo descends from lotto, a numbers game played in Italy from around the 1500s. It spread through Europe as a parlor and teaching game, then reached the US, where carnival operators turned it into the 5×5 card game Americans play today.

Here is the short version:

Did bingo really start in Italy in 1530?

Probably close to then, but the details are hard to pin down. Most histories, including Wikipedia’s article on American bingo, say a lotto game was being played in Italy around 1530, and the name Lo Giuoco del Lotto d’Italia (“the game of lotto of Italy”) is widely repeated. We could not find a primary document from 1530 using that exact name, so treat the date and title as the traditional account rather than a proven fact.

What is well established is that lotto games, where numbers are drawn at random and matched against cards or tickets, were common in Italy by the 1700s. The Neapolitan tombola, still played at Italian Christmas gatherings, is a direct cousin of bingo.

How did the game change in France and Germany?

France gave bingo its card; Germany used it as a classroom tool. According to commonly cited accounts, French Le Lotto around 1778 used a card of 27 squares in three rows and nine columns, with five numbers from 1 to 90 in each row. That layout survives almost unchanged in modern 90-ball bingo, the main game in the UK.

In 19th-century Germany, similar lotto games were sold as educational toys to drill children on spelling, animal names and times tables. Teachers still use the same idea today. See our classroom bingo guide.

Who was Hugh J. Ward?

Hugh J. Ward was a carnival operator who standardized American bingo. The Library of Congress Copyright Office says Ward began running the game at carnivals in Pittsburgh and around western Pennsylvania in the early 1920s. In 1933 he registered a copyright for a rulebook titled Bingo, describing it as “a modern game adapted to commercial use, to advertise merchandise and to stimulate sales.” He did not renew the copyright.

Ward’s role matters because it complicates the most famous origin story. The Library of Congress notes that the carnival game Lowe later saw near Atlanta followed Ward’s rules.

How did Edwin Lowe turn “Beano” into bingo?

Edwin S. Lowe, a New York toy salesman, found the game at a carnival near Atlanta in December 1929 and turned it into a national product. Players there called it “Beano” because they covered numbers on cardboard sheets with dried beans.

Lowe took the game home to New York and started playing it with friends. The famous story, repeated in many histories, is that one friend got so excited she shouted “Bingo!” instead of “Beano!” Lowe liked the sound and used it for the boxed game his company sold. Early sets came as 12-card and 24-card packs.

His E. S. Lowe Company later also sold Yahtzee. Milton Bradley bought the company in 1973 for a reported $26 million. Lowe died in 1986; his New York Times obituary was headlined “Toy Manufacturer Popularized Bingo.”

Is the “Bingo instead of Beano” story true?

It might be, but it’s disputed. Three reasons for doubt:

• The word existed already. The Online Etymology Dictionary dates “bingo!” as an exclamation of surprise to 1923 and the game name to 1924, both before Lowe’s 1929 trip.
• Ward may have named it first. A 1935 Pittsburgh newspaper account, cited by researchers, credited Ward with christening the game “bingo.”
• The anecdote comes from Lowe himself, through interviews and company retellings, with no independent witness.

The fair summary: Lowe made bingo famous, but he probably didn’t invent the game or the name.

Who was Carl Leffler?

Carl Leffler is named in most histories as the Columbia University mathematician who designed thousands of unique bingo cards for Lowe. The story goes that a Catholic priest from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, was using Lowe’s game to raise money, but his card sets had too many duplicates, so several players kept winning at once. Lowe hired Leffler to create cards with different number combinations. By around 1930, according to the National Catholic Register and other accounts, about 6,000 different cards were in print.

We found this story only in secondary sources, not in Leffler’s own papers or a contemporary record, so read it as the traditional account. The math problem itself is real: there are about 552 septillion possible 75-ball cards, but producing a large set with no near-duplicates by hand in 1930 was hard work.

How did churches make bingo an American institution?

Catholic parishes adopted bingo as a Depression-era fundraiser, and it spread from there. After the Wilkes-Barre priest’s success, the game reportedly moved to a Knights of Columbus hall in Utica, New York, and then to parishes across the Northeast. The National Catholic Register cites a figure of roughly 10,000 bingo games a week in the US by 1934.

Not everyone approved. New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia ordered a temporary ban on bingo in 1938, and the Archdiocese of New York halted its parish games in 1942 before later lifting the ban. Synagogues and Protestant churches ran weekly games too. Over the following decades, states wrote charitable gaming laws that limited bingo to churches, veterans posts and other nonprofits, a structure that still shapes how bingo is licensed today. Read more in our guide to bingo hall culture.

When did tribal bingo begin?

Tribal bingo took off in the late 1970s. The National Indian Gaming Commission says tribes began establishing bingo operations in the 1970s to raise money for tribal government. The Seminole Tribe of Florida opened a high-stakes bingo hall in December 1979, and the resulting court case, Seminole Tribe v. Butterworth (1981), was an early win for tribal gaming. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 later classified bingo as Class II gaming, regulated by tribes with federal oversight.

How did bingo evolve after World War II?

It moved from cardboard and beans to daubers, electronic boards and apps. Key changes:

• Paper and daubers replaced reusable cards and beans for faster, more cards-per-player play.
• Electronic flashboards appeared in halls in the late 1970s and 1980s.
• The UK went its own way: the Betting and Gaming Act 1960 opened the door to commercial bingo clubs, many in former cinemas and dance halls, playing 90-ball.
• Online and app bingo arrived in the 1990s and 2000s. Today’s US app market is a mix of free social games, skill-based cash apps and sweepstakes sites; see our guide to online bingo apps.

Bingo history timeline at a glance

1. c. 1530: Lotto played in Italy (traditional date)
2. 1700s: Tombola develops in Naples
3. 1778: Le Lotto in France (commonly cited)
4. 1800s: Educational lotto in Germany
5. Early 1920s: Hugh J. Ward runs bingo at Pennsylvania carnivals
6. 1923–1924: “Bingo” first recorded as an exclamation and as a game name
7. December 1929: Edwin Lowe sees “Beano” near Atlanta
8. c. 1930: About 6,000 unique cards printed for Lowe (traditional account)
9. 1933: Ward copyrights a Bingo rulebook
10. 1934: An estimated 10,000 games a week in the US
11. 1979: Seminole Tribe opens a high-stakes bingo hall in Florida
12. 1988: Indian Gaming Regulatory Act makes bingo Class II gaming